Remove crosses from a hill

Kit wrote on 10/22/2015, 5:10 AM

I have a silhouette of a hill with colorful clouds racing behind it. There are two crosses jutting up from the hill and I want to remove them. I can't find a good method. I've looked at chroma key and making a bezier mask but the results are poor and the crosses/outlines can be seen. How to remove these objects? Thanks

Kit

PS Thought I just posted this but cannot see it in the forum so am trying again.

Comments

Tim Stannard wrote on 10/22/2015, 5:19 AM

Key to a task like this is understanding what you are going to put in the space that you've removed. If you just remove the crosses, you'll need something that precisely matches and lines up with the sky behind it. And you probably don't have that as it was hidden by the crosses. Trying to patch it up with other buts of the image might be possible, with a lot of feathering. You'd probably then need a separate mask to retain the top of the hill without feathering.
It's difficult to provide suggestions without seeing the clip.

Kit wrote on 10/22/2015, 5:34 AM

Thanks I made a still of the sky but the trouble I'm having now is that my bexier tool won't do straight lines so I can't make a cross shape. is ther no way to move/drag points once created? It's not like CorelDraw!

Dexcon wrote on 10/22/2015, 6:00 AM

NewBlue FX have a handy plugin called Cut Away which I've used successfully a few times over the years. It achieves what Tim suggests, and its mask feathering is often much more ;invisible' than the feathering in VP's masking. Effectively, you highlight the area you want to replace, and then choose another area of the same image that you want to replace the highlighted area - probably just the left or right of the 'to-be-deleted' area..

But I must stress that sometimes its successful, but other times it isn't - it depends very much on the image. The most obvious caveat in your case is that if the angle of the hill's horizon isn't the same, it's going to stick out as a 'jaggy' which is not all that good. Also, the success of this approach is really dependent on how well the replacement cloud image blends in with the surrounding cloud image.

Tim Stannard wrote on 10/22/2015, 7:14 AM

Right click on one of the nodes. One of the options (Initialize tangents?) will remove the handles that control the curvature of the bezier lines.. Having said that, I'd avoid straight lines as they are much more obvious to the eye (or, I suspect, the brain which is hard wired to look for patterns)

(Edited for typos)

Chienworks wrote on 10/22/2015, 8:53 AM

Straight lines really aren't necessary anyway. It's perfectly acceptable to remove & replace more than just the cross. If you also include some of the sky around it, who would know?

Tech Diver wrote on 10/22/2015, 9:05 AM

The ideal tool for this is the object removal function in Mocha Pro. It makes the task very easy, however, it is quite expensive.

Peter

john_dennis wrote on 10/22/2015, 12:03 PM

Kit wrote on 10/23/2015, 5:50 PM

Thanks, I think this is a good idea - makes the shape less easy to see.

Kit

Kit wrote on 10/23/2015, 5:52 PM

Thanks, will check out the links. Thanks also to everyone who replied. Because of a deadline I gave up on the idea I wanted to implement but did get something working. Need to check out the bezier tool more - never used it before.

Kit